This thematic area addresses issues related to the sustainability and democratization of food and farming. Courses and research opportunities prepare students to support civically-focused efforts that revitalize our food systems and define a more public role for agriculture through education, collaboration, and citizen engagement. This area seeks to integrate social and community concerns into production agriculture and to link agriculture to issues of health, recreation, natural resource management, community development, ethics, and public policy.<br>The Doctor of Philosophy in Community Sustainability is designed to enable students to generate new knowledge in complementary fields responsive to rapidly changing conditions in our natural environment and agricultural systems. The CSUS graduate program is designed for students interested in issues of community sustainability in either a domestic or international context. Broadly speaking, faculty, academic staff, and graduate students working in this graduate program tend to focus their work on community food and agricultural systems, natural resources and the environment, tourism and recreation systems, education and civic engagement, and international development. These themes are very broad and they overlap not only with each other but also with issues around sustainable tourism and protected area management, the focus of the department's other MS and PhD graduate programs. We apply our work in these areas in both domestic and international settings, with numerous faculty and graduate students working in the context of international development.